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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503265">Visions of The Lonely</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithinmoments/pseuds/wordswithinmoments'>wordswithinmoments</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Musician Issei, Pining, Reader-Insert, Smoking, Unrequited Love, anywho, if i give too much i'll spoil lmao, lets b honest, lets be honest mattsun w a guitar does smth, tw: yall kinda drink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:41:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithinmoments/pseuds/wordswithinmoments</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nights in Paris with a drunk tenant that accidentally wandered into the rooftop can’t be too bad, right?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei, Matsukawa Issei &amp; Reader, Matsukawa Issei/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Visions of The Lonely</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello it is i, yet again with another angst lmao</p><p>crossposted on my tumblr (wordswithinmoments)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You met a man in Paris once during an autumn night five years ago.</p><p>Personally, you had always preferred the colder months, so in order to savor the better part of the year, you developed a habit of climbing your apartment building’s rooftop every night to watch the lights flicker in the distance. It was mind numbing, but it felt familiar in the way with how this little ritual of yours became a permanent occurrence during the day.</p><p>Three minutes passed before a man, or specifically, a stranger whom you wrote off to just be another <em>drunk tenant</em> that found his way to the rooftop instead of his apartment door took a seat beside you. He nodded to you once before lighting a cigarette and inhaling. You nodded back and shifted closer to the right; you never were fond of the smell of smoke.</p><p>If it were any other situation, you would have turned to his direction and asked him a<em> why</em>, but perhaps it was the quiet of the night that made you think otherwise <em>and</em> the silence had been suffocating, so you decide that his shuffling, occasional sighs, and the steady gulps of his whiskey were a welcome change.</p><p>And then after those three minutes passed, he fished another cigarette from his coat pocket, lighting it up and offering it to you with an audible grunt as his verbal choice of invitation.</p><p><em>So</em>, you thought to yourself, <em>he’s a sad drunk looking for company.</em> The stranger kept his gaze on you before you eventually shook your head no at his offer.</p><p>Another three minutes went by before he offered you a half filled glass of what smelled like whiskey. After he deemed the silence you offered as acceptance, he set the glass in your hand, grabbed the bottle, clinked it against yours, and took a swig. You winced along with him at the aftertaste that followed.</p><p>The second hand made a full rotation in your wrist watch before the stranger beside you decided to break the makeshift silence.</p><p><em>“Issei.”</em> He said, and you noticed his voice sounded a little gruff. He didn’t turn to face you, so you kept your line of sight focused in front of you and nodded. The lights blinking from the Eiffel tower looked like little dots of bokeh lights in the distance.</p><p><em>“(Y/n).”</em> You replied tentatively after some seconds passed, then added, “Thanks for the drink.”</p><p>From a peripheral vision, you saw Issei shrug half-heartedly before releasing a puff of smoke into the air.</p><p>“It’s only a half empty glass.” He replied after some time, and you spend the next few moments thinking about his words while the sea of lights twinkled in the skyline of Paris.</p><p>-</p><p>Meeting at the rooftop afterwards had become a sort of silent agreement between Issei and you.</p><p> At first, it didn’t seem like it, and you gave yourself the excuse that he was just enjoying the view of the city like you were—after all, Issei<em> is</em> a tenant in the building too. He had every right to decide where he wanted to mope about <em>whatever</em> he was even moping about.</p><p>Plus, drinking with a view was never a bad idea.</p><p>Then again, on the nights where he showed up earlier than you did, there would always be an extra glass set beside his, and wordlessly he’d always begin filling it up right as the creaky door would announce your presence.</p><p>“This half empty or half-filled tonight?” You asked him one particular night.</p><p>“That’s on you. ‘S always gonna be half empty to me.” He replied, then looked straight at you for the first time.</p><p>That was when you noticed Issei looked sad.</p><p>But, <em>sad</em> like the sadness you feel with nostalgia. Of longing even, but you had your own bouts of nostalgia so often you liked to assume his longing was never because of something tragic; at least you <em>hoped</em> it wasn’t. You never took it upon yourself to ask him why he decides to drink with the company of a stranger, but then again, he never exactly voiced out his questions about why you sit on the rooftop and stargaze on cloudy nights.</p><p>You figured Issei wasn’t much of a talker, but one night he decided to bring along an old classical guitar with his usual bottle of whiskey.</p><p>You had arrived and settled in your spot close to the edge when he sat down next to you and asked if you minded if he would make a little noise tonight. The smile that crept up your face was quick to form and a verbal assurance that you didn’t mind slipped from your lips a little too quickly than you would have liked—which naturally caught you a little off guard.</p><p><em>Did I sound too eager, perhaps? </em>you think. </p><p>You’re guessing he didn’t mind because he turns to face the pegs on the guitar and begins tuning. You figured he must not mind the cold much either because despite the occasional breeze that blew in our direction, Issei didn’t shiver.</p><p>Looking at him, you saw that Issei already had his fingers positioned to a chord while his thumb on the other hand was ghosting over the low E string.  He remained quiet for a while, and the pause reminded you of the moment of silence a pianist would take before the fingers that were hovering on the keys would eventually begin to play—and you smiled because in an weird way, you felt as if you were going to understand a little bit more of this stranger tonight.</p><p>And true to your assumptions, right as he began, you could only hold your breath when the melodies began to roll out because his music proved to be as sad as the longing in his eyes.  </p><p>The nights after that, Issei began to hum along the melodies he played; you listened every night to his songs of woe. </p><p>Some nights he would sing about a love just beginning, while other nights he’d sing about that same love ending. Your favorite ones was when he sang the same song for days on end. It expressed a different feeling every time, too—and somewhere along those nights you began to ask the questions that you were aware were present, but remained unspoken.</p><p>And it was somewhere between the lines of <em>Bruno Major’s Tapestry</em> and <em>To Let a Good Thing Die</em>, that the unspoken what ifs you kept at bay, began to prod at your head. </p><p>And they were slow, <em>calculated,</em> but mostly <em>hesitant</em>.</p><p>And every time that his eyes would catch yours while the vibrato in his voice deepened, you’d remind yourself that <em>Issei is still a stranger</em>. A stranger who sang you songs of his woe—about a love that he’d gained and lost, and wanted back.</p><p>It was in his melancholic melodies did you pick up the pieces of his hope to find a love as pure as his first, and in those nights his tune delivered a message a little sadder—so you couldn’t help but yearn that love for him too.</p><p>Though it begs the question of whether you truly wanted it <em>for</em> him or <em>with</em> him.</p><p>You didn’t know his last name, what he did for a living, or even how he liked his coffee but at the same time his presence became a comforting kind of familiar.</p><p>And those questions only amplified the night he let himself laugh out loud at a wrong chord for the first time. The shift in the atmosphere was almost instant and his slight giddiness might as well have been tangible.</p><p>“Maybe it’s time for a new song.” You suggested, and for a second you didn’t know if you meant it to be<em> literal</em> or <em>metaphoric</em>, but Issei smiled and nodded before strumming a pattern that was unfamiliar to you.</p><p>If you could tell a recap of how the next few moments went down and the epiphanies that popped up to yourself five years ago, you’re more than sure you’d scoff and roll your eyes.</p><p>But at <em>11:37 PM</em> on a late autumn night in a rooftop in Paris—it was in the chorus of <em>The Bangles’ Eternal Flame</em>, that you discovered the question of <em>“Why not give us a try?”</em> written in your own reflection that stared back at you along the whirlpools of Issei’s inky black eyes.  </p><p> -</p><p>Everything about him reminded you of that fragile moment before the dawn broke into the sky. Of that fine line in the horizon before traces of purple and pink would slowly bleed through the crack of the night’s black backdrop and begin painting the sunrise.</p><p>For as long as you lived in Paris, you loved to sit in the rooftop and watch for stars, for the lights in the distance to flicker, and to listen to the sounds of lovers laughing in the distant streets.</p><p>Ever since Issei joined your little hideaway in the rooftop, his presence felt a little like stargazing. Which was <em>odd</em> because you can’t really find stars in the city—but it was in Issei’s eyes where you saw all the constellations that flew past you when you used to live in the countryside.</p><p>The lights from the distance flickered and reflected themselves in the black canvas that were his eyes. And you could<em> swear</em> that there was always something, <em>a story that was yet to be told,</em> in his eyes—whether they gleamed with hope or sadness, they never failed to make you feel like you’re in a space where every second and every fiber of this world was just <em>him</em>.</p><p>In the short hours where he let his melancholy be known through the strings of his guitar, you become entrapped in <em>his</em> universe. For that glimpse in time, you become a passing meteorite among the stars of his galaxies—watching, drifting, and <em>waiting</em> for the answers to be written in his constellations.</p><p>And the answers came in the night he kissed you. A kiss that was as fleeting as it had come, but you couldn’t bring myself to mind because afterwards Issei looked at you <em>truly</em> for the first time afterwards. His palm feeling warm against your cheek and his breath flush against the plains of your lips in the cool air. </p><p>And your heart soared because in his eyes—in the galaxies swirling, were the answers.</p><p>Then for a split second, you thought back to your question of <em>“Why not give us a try?” </em>and felt your breath catch in your throat because in them were the tendrils of an abstract <em>“maybe”</em> that danced across the constellations of deep irises.</p><p>The haze that they used to hold suddenly cleared and what remained was nothing but the roots of certainty.</p><p>So you let yourself close your eyes and whisper, <em>“Issei.”</em></p><p>Because <em>Issei</em> is the name of the man who you met at a rooftop in Paris, who sang you songs of his woe and smelled like cigarettes and day old whiskey. Through his company you learned of the love that he’d gained, then lost, and <em>wanted back</em>. And your heart, for the second time that night, clenched in a way that<em> felt right</em>; when he parted with your lips to look at you again—his eyes clear, and the confession resolute.</p><p>In that moment you remembered when he said he wanted to love again—the kind of love that left you breathless and inebriated, and you could almost open your mouth to tell him, <em>“How about this? Why not give us a try?”</em> ,but he suddenly cups your face, suddenly looking confused because he says, “You’re not Hiro.”</p><p>And it took the both of you to be enveloped in some silence before speaks and lets you know the story of his longing. And eventually it all clicks when you come to know that Hanamaki Takahiro is the name of the man who used to live in the unit across from his, who listened to him sing songs of life and <em>love</em>, and smelt of spring rain and sakura blossoms. <em>Hanamaki Takahiro</em> is the name of a man he addressed his unsent love letters to and the man who told him goodbye on a rooftop in Paris seven months ago.</p><p>And suddenly the answer Issei delivers ring clear in the quiet night.</p><p>The glass always being <em>half empty</em> ring clear in the quiet night.</p><p>The way he stares into the distance in longing rings so clear in the <em>fucking night</em>.</p><p>Issei is the universe in his own right. And you are <em>only</em> the meteor wandering within the galaxies of him. You reckon there’s no sound in space, but if there was, you’d like to think that it would sound like the strings of a guitar played in harmony with a deep vibrato. </p><p>You will always just be <em>among</em> the stars and never be a <em>part</em> of them. Never a part of his answers.</p><p>And perhaps what you and Issei saw were just <em>visions of the lonely</em> because while you saw the roots of a start— he saw someone else in place of you.</p><p>And after that, when he tells you sorry, and an excuse that he got caught up in the moment, you compose yourself with a laugh and an assurance that it’s okay, and grab the glass he brought with him that night and ask him to pour you a drink.</p><p>Issei doesn’t look at you for the rest of the night and he stays silent even as he strums a tune on his guitar. This time, you listened to him sing a song about spring. And you looked forward as you sipped the whiskey that smelt like him, and tightened your jacket against the chill of autumn’s air.</p><p>You try not to think about how the blurred lights of even the Eiffel tower doesn’t compare the worlds you saw in the pools of Issei’s orbs—or how for the first time, you could finally see why the glass he filled was only half empty. </p><p>And you suppose hearing the answers was worth the wait, because when Issei looks in your direction and lifts his glass for a toast it was then that you decide that for as long as you have nights in Paris with Issei’s songs filling the white noise of the background—you didn’t mind.</p><p>You watch him and his glassy eyes reminisce about spring in the autumn and feel your heart breaking because somewhere in there you know he was still hoping to find the same bloom of sakura among the dead leaves of the present.</p><p><em>“You’ll be fine.”</em> You say to him and clink your glass against his. <em>“Spring will come again.”</em></p><p>Issei laughs next to you and closes his eyes. <em>“Maybe it’s time to wait for different flowers to bloom.”</em> He says and holds his glass out for you to fill.</p><p><em>“Half empty?”</em> You ask.</p><p><em>“Half full.”</em> He answers, and the both of you share a smile in the chill of autumn’s air, the dead leaves somehow looking vibrant against the cracked pavement.</p><p> -</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading, i hope you smile lots today! :D let's be moots on twitter, i will follow back lit anyone lmao! @ww_moments</p></blockquote></div></div>
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